Offense carries CA to District 10-A tourney finals

Tuesday

May 8, 2018 at 10:27 PMMay 8, 2018 at 11:02 PM

By MAURICE PATTON mpatton@c-dh.net

CULLEOKA — Winning a baseball game by 20 runs isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds.

Although Columbia Academy scored six runs or more in three different innings Tuesday night to advance to the finals of the District 10-A tournament with a 20-0 victory over host Culleoka, veteran Bulldog coach Richie Estep was more pleased with the mental approach his team took and maintained through the five-inning affair.

“It gets difficult,” said Estep, whose team will face the winner of the 5 p.m. game Wednesday between Culleoka and Richland — a 7-1 winner Tuesday over Hampshire — in the 7:30 p.m. title matchup.

“It’s easy to lose focus. I was proud of how we jumped out after two outs in the first inning, kept at it and scored seven. That was huge, especially with (Alex) Huey on the mound.”

After staking their senior lefthander to a seven-run cushion in the top of the opening inning — all with two outs, keyed by two-run base hits by Ragan Chaney and Huey — the Bulldogs picked up a third-inning run on an Anthony Kintz single and added six in each of their last two at-bats.

“When it was 7-0, 8-0, earlier in the year we’d have coasted,” Estep said. “I thought we did a good job keeping the focus to finish the game.”

Defensively, CA played error-free ball behind Huey, who allowed just two baserunners — walking Gabe Montoya in the first inning and giving up a single to Montoya in the fourth before he was erased on a double play. Huey finished with nine strikeouts.

“He’s been really good here of late,” Estep said. “What’s set him apart from previous years is, he’s not walking anybody.”

Culleoka, the top seed in the tournament, couldn’t get off the field in the opening inning as CA got seven hits and drew threw walks while sending 13 batters to the plate.

“Seven runs was just too much to overcome,” Hendrix said. “We played flat the rest of the game.”

Columbia Academy finished with 17 hits on the night. Kintz led the way with three singles, with Matthew Petzelt, Chaney, Blake Kincaid and David Morgan adding two each.

Richland broke open a scoreless contest with five runs in the fourth off Hampshire starter Hunter Jones, and the Hawks never really solved Skylar Tarpley as he went the distance for the win.

“Jones did a really good job; I think we knocked him out in the second inning when we played them earlier in the year,” Raiders coach Troy Hughes said. “They made some mistakes behind him (Tuesday), threw it around a little. We didn’t hit it a lot, but we made the most when we got guys on base. We ran the bases well.”

Hampshire got a run back in the top of the fifth, as Jones’ two-out single drove in Kirk Whiteside following a leadoff double, but the Hawks managed just two other baserunners the rest of the way.

“We’ve been fighting that one bad inning all year,” coach Luke Jones said following the loss. “Our pitchers have thrown great. Hunter threw well, kept them off balance. We had some routine outs that cost us the game.

“But we’re 100 percent better than we were. That shows the character our kids have got.”

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